


Musings of a Cigarette Smoking Man

by scullywolf



Series: TXF: Scenes in Between [80]
Category: The X-Files
Genre: Gen, Missing Scene, The Lone Gunmen - Freeform
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-10-22
Updated: 2015-10-22
Packaged: 2018-04-27 14:23:37
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 837
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5051881
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/scullywolf/pseuds/scullywolf





	Musings of a Cigarette Smoking Man

(pre-episode)

 

The computer beeped, and Frohike looked up. He scanned the screen for only a moment before his jaw dropped.

“No way. No freaking way…”

“What’s up?”

“I’m a dead man.” He looked across the room at Langly, his eyes wide, then reached down and yanked the computer’s power cord out from the surge protector.

“Dude! What are you--”

“I need to call Mulder!” Frohike lunged across his desk for the phone and dialed with shaking hands, looking back over at the now-black screen beside him. “Shit, shit, shit…”

“Hello?”

“Mulder! Hey, man, it’s… um, it’s me. Look, I need your help. I’ve stumbled into something, and now it’s coming back to bite me in the ass. You gotta help me.”

“Frohike? Hey, slow down, what’s going on?”

His gaze darted around the room, as if any moment someone would come crashing through the door. “I’m gonna have to go to ground. But there’s some stuff I gotta tell you first, and not over the phone. How soon can you get here?”

“You caught me on my way home. I don’t know, 25 minutes maybe?”

“Is Agent Scully with you?”

“No, she’s… She lives in Georgetown, Frohike. We don’t carpool.”

“Well can you pick her up? Just in case I don’t make it through this, I… Could you just bring her with you? Please?”

There was a pause, then Mulder sighed. “She’s not gonna be happy, but all right. Can you wait 40 minutes?”

He swallowed and looked at the clock, then over at the darkened computer screen, the door, and back to the clock. “I’ve probably got two hours max before I need to bug outta here. Just… hurry.”

He hung up the phone and turned to find two men looming beside him. He jumped up, knocking over his chair and breathing hard, ready to bolt, before his brain caught up with his eyes and he realized it was only Langly and Byers. Langly’s arms were crossed in front of his chest.

“You gonna tell us what the hell is going on, man?”

Frohike swallowed against the sudden dryness in his mouth.

“I, um…” He lowered his voice to a whisper. “You remember the search I’ve been doing, looking for background intel on that cigarette-smoking bastard?”

Byers’s eyes narrowed. “Yes…”

“Well, this morning I found the motherlode. Sealed records, classified files that officially don’t even exist, evidence of a nefarious network operating outside government control, but with unlimited access to top-secret information. And this guy’s at the head of it. This bastard, the same one who tried to kill Mulder and probably orchestrated Scully’s abduction? He freaking killed JFK, man!”

Langly looked skeptical. “People have been trying to get proof of a second shooter for years. You’re telling us you actually found it, just hacked your way into some digital repo of everything no one’s supposed to know about?”

“Please tell me you used countermeasures,” said Byers.

“Of course I did! But that’s the thing. Three minutes ago, someone managed to backtrack through all of my IP rerouting and tripped the detector I set up when I was covering my tracks. Someone followed me back out of the repo, and now I’m afraid I’ve led him right to us. I figure I’ve got an hour and a half, tops, before someone’s parked across the street with a high-powered rifle aimed at our front door.”

“You told Mulder two hours,” said Langly.

“Over the phone, you bet your ass I did. Anyone could be listening, and if they think that _I think_ I’m safe for another two hours, then with any luck at all, I can beat them by bailing out of here in half that. It’s my only chance, guys. Otherwise--”

“You mean  _our_  only chance,” Byers interrupted. “Any one of us could have been responsible for the hack.”

“Yeah,” Langly said, “you might as well have put a target on all our backs.”

Frohike felt the blood drain from his face. Of course he’d put his friends in danger too. How could he have been so stupid?

“Look, we’ll sweep for active and passive listening devices.” Ever practical, Byers moved over to a cabinet and began extracting equipment. “We have no windows here, so anyone planning a hit won’t be able to rely on visual surveillance. And we’ve got countersurveillance in spades. In truth, this is actually probably the safest place to be.”

“If only it didn’t feel so much like being a fish in a barrel,” Langly muttered. “One well-placed block of C-4 on the outside wall, and we’re done for. Frohike’s right, we oughta bolt. I’m going to pack a bag.”

He stalked off to his room, and Frohike looked at Byers. “I’m sorry,” he said quietly. “This is all my fault.”

“We all know the risks we take in service of our search for the truth. If what you’ve found is genuine, getting the information to Mulder will have been worth the risk, won’t it?”

Frohike sighed, nodding. “I sure hope so.”


End file.
